6io 



The Review of Reviews. 



THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 



The most important paper in the November 

 number is Admiral Mahan's argument against arbitra- 

 tion, which 'is quoted elsewhere, as is also Arthur 

 Benington's " New Source of the ' Divina 

 Commedia.' " 



TO RKFORM THE U.S. CONSTI I U IION. 



"Mr. Munroe Smith pleads that the American 

 Constitution should be made more flexible. He offers 

 the following suggestions : — 



Proposal of amendments by llie majority vote of both Houses in 

 two successive Congresses ; submission of sucli proposals lo the 

 legislatures of the several States or to conventions in the several 

 States or directly to the voters in each of the States, as one or 

 another of these modes of ratification may be proposed by 

 Congress ; and ratification of proposals by a majority of the 

 States, provided that the ratifying States contain, according to 

 the la-.t preceding enumeration, a majority of the total popula- 

 tion of all the States. 



CANADIAN POMTICS VERSUS AMERICAN. 



Mr. Henry Jones Ford contrasts .American and 

 Canadian political methods to the immense advan- 

 tage of the latter. The difference seems to be in 

 directness of election, in freedom from party domina- 

 tion in the ballot, in freedom from jobbery and office 

 brokerage, exemption from pressure or servitude in 

 the matter of offices, appropriations or franchises, in 

 business-like administration and responsibility, in wider 

 functions, in the dignity of legislators, in orderliness : — 



The aliility of a member is shown not by the number of bills 

 he is able to pass or by the amount of appropriations he is able 

 to get, but by his eminence as a debater and his acuteness as a 

 critic of public policy. This explains how it is that working- 

 men may rise to such high positions in English commonwealths. 

 A working man cannot rise in American politics unless he first 

 accumulates wealth and ceases to be a working man. 



Perhaps this fact sheds some light on the problem 

 suggested by the Rev. P. S. (Irant, how to put the 

 people behind the law. Mr. Grant states that the 

 general feeling amongst the -working people is ex- 

 tremely bitter against the law ; they have no con- 

 fidence in it. 



HOW TO GOVERN THE PANAMA CANAL. 



Mr. Emory R. Johnson outlines the legislation he 

 thinks necessary for the Panama Canal. He hopes 

 that Congress will vest in the President of the United 

 States military, civil, and judicial powers over the 

 Canal zone, with the Colonel of Engineers appointed 

 by him as President or Director of the Canal. Under 

 him would be Departments of Canal Operation, of 

 Railroad Operation, of Sanitation and Quarantine, 

 of Zone Administration. .As soon as the world 

 can be informed what the arrangements will be, and 

 especially what the tolls will be, the better it will be 

 for the Canal, he maintains. 



NIETZSCHE AND WIIIIMAN. 



Mrs. L. C. Willco.x writes on Nietzsche as the 

 doctor for sick souls : — 



It is doubtful whether Nietzsche will ever have a very wide 

 circle of readers in .America. Despite the fact that he is 

 the ideal aristocrat and Whitman the ideal democrat, he has 

 many points in common with our own unaccepted poet. They 



share tlie same grandiose egoism, the same courage to " sing 

 myself," the same impatience with sick conscience, repentance. 

 an<l remorse, and, finally, the same sense that as the individual 

 a((|uires independence, freedom, and an expansive outlook he 

 will become whole and well. 



It is unnecessary to point out how alien is Niel?sche's whole 

 attitude of mind to the American temper. lie abhorred com- 

 mercialism, humanitarianism, fucile optimism, any form ct 

 casual, easy-going light-heartedness. 



Of his relation to the Christian religion' the writer 

 says that Nietzsche mistook Christian morality to be 

 the desire of the individual to save his own soul. She 

 says : — 



It is only when one realises that what that meant was that 

 each individual should strive to subject his lower nature to his 

 higher in the interests of all that one sees that our Westerrs 

 religion and our Teutonic philosopher were really aiming at one 

 and the same mark : to make of man " an arrow and an aspira- 

 tion after super-man." . . . 



Many of his profoundest sayings are, she says, 

 mere echoes of the sayings of Christ. 



THE FORUM. 



The November number is notable for papers, 

 mentioned elsewhere, on the Monroe Doctrine, by 

 Julius Chambers, and the Defeat of Reciprocity, by 

 Peter McArthur, as well as for Horace Traubel's 

 reminiscences of Walt Whitman. 



THE PROSPECTS OF HOME Rt^LE. 



Mr. Sydney Brooks, discussing the Irish question, 

 says that Great Britain has allowed her Irish policy 

 to be dictated by the extremists of Ulster for the last 

 time. The power of Ulster Unionism to influence 

 British opinion has progressively declined during the 

 last twenty years. That and the House of Lords are 

 the two chief obstacles removed. The Irish mind 

 during the last two decades has taken a novel and 

 most hopeful turn towards the concrete and construc- 

 tive. Ireland is more prosperous than she -has ever 

 been, and, difficult as the Anglo-Irish financial 

 relatiotis will be, it has never been less difficult 

 than now. 



THE PRIMITIVl'. \V0I;KING WOMAN. 



This prehistoric person is the subject of a very 

 interesting essay by .Anna G. Spencer. These are 

 the chief of her gifts to the race : — 



The treasury of pre-human motherhood to dower humanity. 

 The initiation of the race into usefiil and peaceful labour. The 

 softening of the rigours of slavery by a unique appeal to pity 

 and affection. The cultivation fiom within the home, even 

 in captivity, of those co-operative impulses which make for social 

 welfare. 



OTHER ARrrCI.ES. 



Mr. Frank Harris, in his irreverent romance on 

 primitive Christianity, should know his New Testa- 

 ment better. He represents Paul as requiring a 

 believing wife to leave an unbelieving husband — 

 which is flatly in contradiction with the teaching of 

 the real I'atil. 



Mr. W. M. Cabot testifies to the growing apprecia- 

 tion of beauty in American life, and suggests a few 

 ways in which a true realisation of beauty could 

 help to overcome the national weaknesses. 



